"The Decipherment of Linear B" by John Chadwick is the story of how Michael Ventris, an architect with no formal education in linguistics and cryptanalysis, def

"The Decipherment of Linear B" by John Chadwick is the story of how Michael Ventris, an architect with no formal education in linguistics and cryptanalysis, defied conventional (and his own) dogma and revealed the ancient Linear B script to have been used to write down the Greek language. This rewrote European history over night, and ends with a lovely section on what the now-readable documents reveal about the civilization who produced them. Wonderful lessons therein on: - thinking from first principles and following the evidence and solid metrics - being willing to be proven wrong, and keeping an open mind in the face of new facts - the value of open scientific collaboration - resisting arguments from authority - how fundamental skills and intelligence transfer across domains Ventris did not have a Rosetta stone at hand, so he had to decipher the script from what he could suss out using statistical methods and building up an internal logic. It's also a fun story of a great puzzle. It's a short and great book and was formative to me. There's newer books on the story that do a better job of highlighting the contributions of Ventris' collaborators (particularly the impressive Alice Kober), but Chadwick's is still the most concise and enjoyable, I think.